Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-11-26
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A HISTORY OF ADVENTURE
BY Il. RIDER HAGGARD

- " 'fA>'N ~ 'hNtNNa Af'' - 'f'
the more or less perfect portraits of his
long-scattered brethren staring at him
from Che quiet water, or the merry peal of
laughter with which Ayesha greeted his
CONSERVATION. AS for Leo, he did not like
it either, but ran his fingers through his
yellow curls, and remarked that it gave
him the creeps.
After about an hour of this amusement,
in the latter part of which Job did not par
t~icipate, the mutes 10y signs indicated that
Billali was waiting for an audience. Ac-
cordingly he was told to "crawlup," which
he did as awkwardly as usual, and an.
nounced that the dance was ready to begin
if She and the white strangers would be
pleased to attend. Shortly afterward we
all rose, and Ayesha having thrown adark
cloak 0he same, 10y the way, that she had
worn when | saw her cursing by the fire.
ever her white ~wrappings, we started. The
dance was to be held in the open air, on
the smooth rocky plateau in front Of the
great cave, and thither we made our way.
About fifteen PAGES from the mouth Of the
cave we found three chairs placed, and
here we sat and waited, for as yet no
dancers were TO be seen. The night was
almost, but not quite, dark, the moon be-
ing not risen as yet, which made us won
der how we should be able to see the dane
ing.
Thou wilt presently understand" said
Ayesha, with a little laugh, when Leo
asked her; and we certainly did. Scarcely
were the words out Of her mouth when
from every point we saw dark forms rush
ing up, bearing with them what we at
first took to be enormous flaming torches.
Whatever they were, they were burning
furiOusly, for the flames stood out n yard
or more behind each bearer. On they
came, fifty or more Of them, looking like
devils from hell, with their flaming bur
dens. Leo was the first 10 discover what
these burdens were.
Great Heaven he shouted; "they are
corpses on fire"
] stared. and stared again. He was per-
fcctly right; the torches that were To light
our entertainment were human mummies
from the ~Caves.''
Or rushed the bearers of the flaming
corpses, and mcetinga at a spot about twenty
PAGES i'm front of us, built their CHASTITY
burdens crossways INTO a huge bonfire.
Heavens! how they roared and ilaredl No
tar barrel could have burnt as those mum
mics did. Nor was this all. suddenly |
saw one great fellow seize "a flaming hui
man arm that had fallen from its parent
frame, and rush Of into The darkness.
Presently he stopped, and a tall streak of
tire shot mp into the air, THINNING the
gloom, and also the lamp from which it
sprung. The lamp was the mummy of n
woman tied To q stout stake let into the
rock, and he had fred her hair. On he
$3.50 d, F,n- nn,nr arI fn,Yyhnl ~ g,g,,,l
then a third and q fourth, till at last we
were surrounded on all three sides by q
great ring of bodies fariug furiOusly, the
material with which they were preserved
having rendered them so intlammable that
the flames would literally spout out Of the
ears and mouth in tongues Of fire IA foot or
more long.
As soon as ever a mummy had burnt
down to the ankles, which il did in about
twenty minutes, the feet were kicked away
and another one put in its place. The bon
fire was kept going on the same generous
scale, and its flames shot up with n hiss
and a crackle twenty or thirty feet into the
air, throwing great flashes of light far out
into the gloom, through which the dark
forms Of the A~mahagger fitted to and fro
like devils replenishing the internal fires.
We all stood and stared aghast-shocked,
and yet fascinated-at so strange a specta-
Gle, and half expecting to see the spirits
those flaming forms had once Enclosed
come creeping from the shadows TO work
vengeance on their desecrators.
II promised thee q strange sight, my
Holly laughed Ayesha, whose nerves
alone did not seem to be affected, "and,
lzI-1l 4 IA-a - f-s1al a.. 40, ~
hath its lesson. Trust not To the future,
for who knows what the future may bring?
Therefore, live for the day, and cndeavor
not to escape the dust which seems to be
mans end. What thinkest thou those
long-forgotten mobiles and ladies would
have felt had they known that they should
one day fare to light the dance or boil the
pot Of ssYages' But see, here come the
dancers; \ merry they not? The
stage is lit-now for the play"
AS she spoke, we perceived two lines of
figures, one male and the other female, to
the number of about q hundred, each adj
vancing round the human bonfire, arrayed
only in the usual leopard and buck skins.
They formed up, in perfect silence, in two
lines, facing each other, between us and
the fire, and then the dance-a sort Of in
fernal and ficudish cancan-began. To
describe ii is quite impossible; but though
there was a good deal of tossing Of legs
and double Shuflling it seemed TO our UNI
tutored mines 10 be more of a play than a
dance, and, as usual with this dreadful
people, whose minds seem to have taken
their color from the caves in which they
live, and whose Jokes and amusementS are
drawn from the inexhaustible stores of
preserved mortality with which they share
their homes, the subject appeared to be q
most CHASTITY one. ! know that it repre-.
scented an attempted murder first of all,
and then the burial alive OF the victim and
his struggling from the grave, each act Of
the abominable drama, which was carried
on in perfect silence, being rounded off and
finished with a furious and most revolving
dance round the supposed victim, who
writhed upon the ground in tho red light
of the fire.
Presently, however, this pleasing piece
was interrupted. Suddenly there was a
slighG commotion, and a great, powerful
woman, whom I had noted as one Of the
| most vigorous Of the cancers, came. made
mad and drunken with unholy excitement,
bounding and staggering toward us, Shrek
ing out rs she came:
~ want q black goat; I must have a black
goat; bring ne a black goat!' and down
she fell upon the rocky floor, foaming and
writhing, and shrek ng for n black goat
about as hideous a spectacle as can well be